Injuries stacking up for the Denver Broncos

Peyton Manning was at practice Wednesday, but his workout was for team eyes only.

Coach Kubiak said Manning is still day-to-day, but thanks to his progress there was no reason to keep quarterback Christian Ponder on the roster.

“Normally when you get guys beat up or something guys are going to IR creating open spots,” said coach Kubiak. “We got a lot of guys beat up right now that we’re expecting back. So there aren’t a lot of places for us to pull from right now as a football team.”

The current Broncos’ starting quarterback says Manning is helping him take care of the pigskin.

“More or less what I’ve learned from Peyton is when to throw the ball away and move on to the next play,” said quarterback Brock Osweiler. “Sometimes the best play is a throw-away.”

Manning isn’t the only gimpy Bronco. Right now Denver’s injury report looks more like a 13-year-old’s Christmas list – it’s long. The good news is that it sounds like the cavalry is on its way.

“The season is really long,” said rookie linebacker Shane Ray. “Everybody talks about hitting the ‘rookie wall.’ I’m not going to say that I’m hitting a wall, but I’m definitely noticing it. [For example] my season in college would be done right now.”

Reinforcements could come this week in the form of Pro Bowler DeMarcus Ware, who missed the last four games. Ware’s running mate Derek Wolfe believes the Broncos have actually had some injury luck.

“That’s the nature of the beast, this is a violent game and people are going to get hurt,” said Wolfe. “We’re just lucky we don’t have any injuries that are career ending or season ending – just bumps and bruises that can be fixed in 2-4 weeks.”

Denver will look to get healthy at the right time, as the playoffs are only a month away.